Submitted by Marcum Fort Polk, 2008 My reserve hospital unit had just demobilized and this was our first AT together as a unit since we got split up and sent all over the place to fill slots all over the Army. CONUS, OCONUS, Afghanistan, Iraq. ARMEDCOM decided to sent us to Polk to set up a field hospital that some other unit would use for JRTC. We had just finished putting up a small section of a DEPMEDS the previous few days and so the brass decided to give us a break and had RTS MED come in to do some training. As a brean new 1 LT at the time (try not to be knocked over by the awesomeness of my silver bar, thanks) I was in meeting, after meeting after meeting just mindnumbing boring crap. I decided to pop into see what the medics were doing being a medical type myself. They were watching a training video, you know the one where the two Marines are hit and seriously wounded/killed trying to get their man out of the street? The room was dark, the sound was really loud, lots of yelling and gunfire through the speakers. I glanced around the room and say one of my sergeants sitting with his head hanging down, staring at the floor, his hands shaking. I went to the RTS med guys and said Hey, I need SGT X for a detail. Hes mine for the rest of the afternoon. I grabbed Sgt X and had him follow me around to the conexes and had him sit down and have a smoke. As I watched him, I could see him visibly calming down. His hands steadied, his eyes seemed to be back to where we needed him to be. I told him to take a break and went and grabbed our First Sergeant and told him Hey, Top. Sgt X needs a break from the medical training for a bit. Know what I mean? You got a job for him?. Top looked at me for a second, and with the amazing NCO ability to read minds he calmly I do know what you mean, Sir. I got him. He started to walk away and then stopped. Thanks LT. Good looking out. I kept an eye on Sgt X over the next few years. He did well, even though he had some rough spots, after all, who doesnt? We all have our scars. I know this isnt a high speed story, about high speed things with high speed people. Its about forgetting the color of your brass or the number of chevrons on your uniform and remembering we all have a flag on our sleeve, and at the end of the day, the only people that will be there for us are each other, from the privates to the butterbars, the sergeants major to the colonels. If we dont look out for each other, who else will? Sincerely, An anonymous medical type, now a captain who would not who he is without his NCOs.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 19:00:16 +0000